Tools of the Trade 2

Last time I posted about my daily planning tools. In the past, I’ve also written about the awesomeness that is Scrivener. Here’s why I love it as an outlining tool:

Yes — note cards, again. And colored ones at that.

Each note card contains a scene summary and can be viewed  either as a traditional, linear outline or on a cork board. I made the cards small so that I could fit the entire novel on one screen — larger note cards show summary text.

Here, I love the abstraction and ability to glance at the novel as a whole and see if various plot threads disappear for too long or if one thread gets way more attention than another — basically, view the overall shape of the novel.

The scenes themselves are linked to cards, so rearranging note cards moves entire scenes. Of course transitions still need to be rewritten for logic and flow, but I love the cork board & note card skeuomorphs so much more than cutting and pasting and editing in a word processor. It’s a software metaphor that works.